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The Princess and the Stalker

As I shared last week on Femnasty, it’s my 2-year anniversary of taking my stalker to the cops and getting an Order Of Protection. I shared about the situation and what happened a year ago, but I’m not done.

See, the problem is, stalking like what happened to me is taught in all kinds of stories as being “romantic” and the way to “win a girl’s heart.” I’m looking at you, Ted from How I Met Your Mother! I don’t think I need to tell you that that is some dangerous, problematic bullshit. Now imagine what our RomComs, SitComs and yes, ever fairy tales would look like if we taught girls that the choice is theirs, and taught boys to respect a woman’s right to say “no?”

THE PRINCESS AND THE STALKER

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who lived in a tower.
Well, not beautiful in your traditional “Disney Princess” kind of way,
but definitely beautiful on the inside. She had a great personality, is
what I’m trying to say.

Anywho, she lives in a tower and spent her days chatting on Twitter…I
mean, chatting with birds! Her friends were birds, you know, like
Cinderella and Snow White? She’s a princess, she lives in a tower, she
makes friends with birds, this is all totally normal princess behavior.
Don’t judge.

One day, a prince was riding by the tower on his horse when he chanced
to see the tower and the princess inside. He was instantly struck by
her beauty – or rather, her great personality. Well, maybe “great” is
pushing it, but she definitely had A personality, and he fell in
love with her on the spot.

“Oh beautiful princess!” He called up. The princess looked up from her
birds, who she was feeding bread crumbs to. It was about 2:45 pm on a
Saturday, and this was Bird Brunch. The princess was displeased to have
her bird brunch interrupted. No one busts up bird brunch, Bitch.

“Oh beautiful princess!” He repeated, just in case maybe she didn’t hear
him the first time? “I am in love with you! I am a prince! Marry me
and be my queen and we shall live happily ever after!”

The princess looked up from her Twitter-bird friends.

“No.”

“No?”

“NO.”

“No?!”

“Yeah, no.”

“Sorry, was that last one a ‘yeah’ or a ‘no’?” the prince sputtereded.

“It was a no. No, no, no,” the Princess added for emphasis.

“Are you sure?” The prince squeaked in his most convincing tone.

“Yep, I’m sure,” the Princess nodded and her bird friends nodded in agreement. The Princess makes her own rules.

“Well, how come?! I’m a prince! And you’re a Princess!”

“Are you serious? Just because you’re a prince and I’m a princess doesn’t mean I have to marry you just because you asked me! Now if you don’t mind, Royal Highness, I WAS HAVING BRUNCH.” The Princess tugged closed the curtains of her tower, shutting the whiny entitled prince DOWN.

“Doubtful,” the Princess muttered into her Bloody Mary. But the prince
was already gone, sped off on his steed to concoct a romantic scheme to
win the princess’s hand.

* * *

The Princess didn’t hear from the Prince for a long time, so she assumed
he’d lost interest and given up. But she had assumed wrong!

One day, out of the blue, the prince came riding up. He hopped down from his steed and shouted up to the Princess: “Greetings, my fair maiden!”

The Princess squinted down from her tower. “Excuse me?”

“It is I, the prince!”

The Princess wasn’t sure she remembered this guy, I mean, there’s princes all over the place in Fairy Tale Land. That tower was pretty high up, dude. Also, maybe he was wearing a hat last time? The Princess didn’t want to be rude, so she decided to be vague.

“Oh, hey, you!” The Princess smiled weakly. “How have you been?”

“I have returned as promised to win your heart!” The Prince unloaded a sack off the back of his horse.

“Oh, it’s you,” the Princess started to turn away back into her tower.

“I have a gift for you, my fair Princess!” the prince produced a scroll from his satchel. “I have written you…a text!”

“A what?” the Princess puffed. “You wrote me a text?”

“Yes! I wrote you a text!” the Prince beamed. “I wrote you a text about my day and I want to know if you’ll marry me now.”

“Um…NO!” the Princess declared firmly.

“Well, okay, then,” the prince rifled through his bag. “I thought you might say that. So I wrote you another text.”

“Well, good for you, but I don’t want any of your texts.”

“Right. And I thought you might say that…” the prince dumped his bag onto the ground in front of the Princess’s tower. 45 more scrolls fell out. “Which is why I wrote you 47 texts! Now will you be my queen?”

“Nope,” the Princess drew the curtains on her tower window.

“You’re just going to ignore all my texts?!?” the prince squeaked.

“That’s right,” the Princess shouted from behind the curtain.

“Well, FINE! But I won’t give up!” the prince leapt onto his steed and sped away. And he didn’t come back for a very long time.

Such a long time, in fact, that the Princess thought maybe he met somebody else. “Good for him,” she thought. The Princess continued messaging Princes on OkCupid, and blogging about her adventures from her tall tower.

* * *

And then ONE DAY, the prince rode up on his horse. Only this time, he was pulling a wagon behind him.

“Salutations, my fair princess!” the prince shouted up. The Princess opened her curtain.

“Oh, you again?” she snapped. “What is it this time?”

“My lady, I have brought a minstrel in yon wagon!” the prince gestured to a short, nervous man peeping out from under a floppy oversized hat, clutching a lute. “His voice will carry my message of love to your tower, and your heart will be mine!”

“Nope,” the Princess ripped her curtain shut.

“You’ll change your mind once you hear his voice and my message!” the prince taunted.

“No I won’t!” the Princess retorted. “Go away!”

“Okay! Get ready to hear my voice message!” the prince gestured towards the minstrel, who nervously adjusted his lute and began to strum.

“What’s the matter with you!?” he prince yelled. The minstrel pulled his hat over his eyes and began trembling. “I’m a prince! You’re a princess! Do you think you’re too good for me? I know you! You think you’re so special?!”

The prince swung up onto his horse and broke into a gallop, jostling the poor, whimpering minstrel in the wagon behind as he yelled: “I’ll be back, and you’ll be sorry!”

And then a lot of time passed, and the Princess went on with her life. Most days she forgot about the prince and his harassment, but every now and then she worried he might actually come back one day. Then even more time passed, and she went about her business, brunching with her bird-friends, when all out of the blue…

* * *

“Good afternoon!” A familiar voice called up the Princess’s tower. The Princess and her bird squad were having a lovely brunch of bird crumbs and Bellinis, and when the prince appeared, the birds started tweeting amongst themselves.

“What are you doing here?” the princess called down, calmly.

“I have brought my lady some flowers!” the prince raised a small bouquet up in the air, reaching as high as he could from the back of his horse. “Send down one of yon bird friends to bring them up to thee in thy tower!”

“Actually,” the Princess set her glass down calmly. “I have something I need to give to you.” She rolled up a scroll and passed it to her bird friend to hold in his beak and carry down to the prince on back of his steed.

“What’s this?” the prince unfurled the scroll and began reading.

“It’s a restraining order,” the Princess finally smiled. “You’re not to come within 500 yards of me OR my tower. Furthermore, you must attend mandatory counseling in the next kingdom over and complete a sexual harassment training course ‘Controlling The Fire-Breathing Dragon Within.’ It’s all there on the paper.”

The Princess tipped her drink to her lips to hide the gloating grin growing over her face. But it wouldn’t have mattered: the prince was still staring at the paper, dumbstruck. He sat there silently for a long, long time. Finally, his horse gave a snort – maybe it was his horsey way of apologizing to the Princess? Or maybe he was just filling the silence because he was embarrassed to be seen with such a moronic douche on his back. He trotted away very slowly, as the prince was still clutching the restraining order in both hands.

The Princess never saw or heard from the annoying, clueless prince again. She continued to blog and message other princes on OkCupid and she only dated the people she liked and didn’t date the people she didn’t like and she lived happily ever after. The End.

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9 thoughts on “The Princess and the Stalker”

YES YES YES!! Love your way of storytelling so so much. Similar thing happened to me – though when I first met him I gave him my number 'cos he seemed surprisingly NOT douchey and interesting. But I knew I wasn't ready for a relationship (still suffering PTSD from a previous relationship and bullying) so I told him that when we exchanged numbers, but that it would be nice to get to know him 'cos he seemed so nice and interesting. He agreed, all seemed good in the hood. He started getting too clingy, messaging me too much, calling me "babe" all the time, so I replied reminding him I wasn't interested in more than friendship, again he agreed, seemed all OK. I don't know when I noticed it start to get really weird… I went home for the summer holidays and barely spoke to him (he was mad I left without seeing him even though we'd only met once). He then basically texted me sporadically and sent one particularly disgusting text that ended with him asking me to describe my own vagina, in my own words, please. Hilarious as I am, I replied "have you seen the film Teeth?" to which he replied "No but I can imagine its not pretty". So that was the last time I ever messaged him. But he continued to message me once a month for about six months – asking how I was, and if I knew someone he could get weed off (lol), I blocked his number, but he somehow contacted me on whatsapp and I didn't know the number but the message said "hi how are you babe?" and NO ONE calls me babe so I guessed it was him and blocked his number again. Thank fuck he didn't walk me all the way home that night so he never knew where I lived.

THANK you for brain dumping! I love comments like these! I'm really sorry you had to go through this too! I hope you saved everything – I kick myself that I didn't save all those text messages, but if I had, I probably would have had to get a new phone because it would have taken up all the available storage in my iPhone. UGH THIS SUCKS! This sucks that this happens all the time, it sucks that ignoring it won't make it go away, saying "go away" doesn't make it go away, and threatening police action doesn't make it go away. This makes me so angry. The fact that it's "romantic" to pursue a woman who isn't interested MAKES ME SO ANGRY. Hence, the story, which THANK YOU for reading and I'm so glad you enjoyed!!! 😀 😀 😀

You are so good in story telling. I felt like I was watching a disney movie ro something. Well, I guess this happens to everyone. My story is different but very similar. I'm happy I didn't date the guy. He still once in a while ask my mom how I'm doing. Thank goodness I don't live in ht village anymore else he would be very obsesssive and annoying.

Thank you so much for reading and for your lovely compliments! I'm overly cautious after the ordeal, so your account makes me shudder. The idea of someone keeping tabs on me through my family (even though we're not close) is just too creepy. Ugh. Glad to hear you got away!

Best story time EVER! I had a couple of stalkers in High School that didn't seem to get the hint. I was even a bit of a creeper until my friends pointed it out to me. That's the difference. People need to realize that this kind of behavior is bullshit. The person you like owes you nothing. Deal with your sorrow for a while and move on to someone who might actually like you. So many times I've gotten messages assuming that I'll like them back for messaging me that I get downright RUDE when anyone tells me they like me. I even bought into this creepy behavior from all the stalkers in movies who get the girl. How is it that we end up rooting for these idiots? Because it's told from their point of view and you're supposed to side with them. Never get to see how creepy it is from the girl's perspective. That's what many of us live daily anyway. It sucks that we have to get restraining orders and seek intervention to get these creeps to quit it. They need help. Anyway, loved the story, gonna share it because it's awesome! <3

Thank you so much for reading and for sharing! I'm like glad/not glad that everyone is coming forward with these stories of their own. I mean, there's nothing we can do to take back the past, but the best possible thing is to keep it from happening in the future. Let's spread the word that stalking is creepy and NOT romantic, and it's not "persuasion," it's HARASSMENT!!! Thank you so much for enjoying my story!